Pence's immigration quandary—Buttigieg's Fox News town hall—Holcomb & Merritt's photo op—Tom Hanks in Indy
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Pence's immigration quandary—Buttigieg's Fox News town hall—Holcomb & Merritt's photo op—Tom Hanks in Indy
What's happening—and what's next—at the intersection of Indiana politics and business?
By Adam Wren and design by Kris Davidson
DRIVING THE WEEK: Tom Hanks and the “Today” show come to Indianapolis. President Donald Trump elevates Pete Buttigieg. Buttigieg heads to New Hampshire Friday and Saturday. Indiana’s politicos descend on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Indy 500. Also driving the week? Quite literally, these drivers. Scroll down for more on all fronts.
HOMETOWN OR THE HUSTINGS?— “South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg out of town for nearly half the days in recent months,” by Jeff Parrott in the South Bend Tribune: “From Austin, Texas, to West Hollywood, Calif., South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s presidential bid has taken him out of town nearly half of the days in recent months, according to his daily calendar, news stories and information online.
“Of the 120 days from Feb. 1 through May 31, Buttigieg was away or plans to be away from the South Bend area at least 55 days, or 45 percent of the calendar days.
Looking at only weekdays, he’s been gone or plans to be out of town for 39 of 86 days — also about 45 percent.”
….
“Common Council President Tim Scott said he did not see a problem with how the city has functioned in Buttigieg’s absence.”
“He said he and council members Karen White and John Voorde met with Buttigieg about two months ago, a routine meeting over a variety of issues, and the four discussed the concept of Buttigieg appointing a deputy mayor during his campaign, as he did with controller Mark Neal during his Afghanistan deployment in 2014. Buttigieg told the council members he didn’t think that was necessary, Scott said.”
IN THE FOX DEN: Buttigieg earned a standing ovation—along with what amounted to a soft biographical spot—in a controversial Fox News town hall appearance Sunday evening. Paid subscribers can read my analysis of the town hall here.
Good morning, and welcome to IMPORTANTVILLE. It’s the week of the Indy 500.
POINT OF PERSONAL PRIVILEGE: IMPORTANTVILLE ranked among the top 10 Substack posts nationally last night. No other Indiana publication is better matched to the moment.
WHERE’S VEEP? He heads to Jacksonville, Fl., to deliver remarks at an America First Policies event on the USMCA. He lunches with the president on Tuesday.
WHERE’S PETE? Buttigieg will head back to New Hampshire this next Friday and Saturday, with events in Londonderry, Exeter and Keene.
GIVING MAYOR PETE OXYGEN? TRUMP TWEETS: “Hard to believe that @FoxNews is wasting airtime on Mayor Pete, as Chris Wallace likes to call him. Fox is moving more and more to the losing (wrong) side in covering the Dems. They got dumped from the Democrats boring debates, and they just want in. They forgot the people.....”
AROUND IMPORTANTVILLE
Sen. Mike Braun pivots on tariffs in an interview with Dan Spehler.
Rep. Susan Brooks acknowledges that it’s a tough time to be in Washington, D.C.
Dozens of faculty and students walked out of Vice President Mike Pence’s commencement address at Taylor University on Saturday in upland. BUT: he received a standing ovation from the hundreds that remained.
MAJOR MOVES
Former Sen. Joe Donnelly’s campaign manager Peter Hansom joins the United Way of Central Indiana as vice president of marketing.
Indiana Office of Management and Budget Director Micah Vincent will be replaced by Cris Johnston, the governor’s deputy chief of staff, according to the Gov. Eric Holcomb’s office.
IMPORTANTVILLE NOTEBOOK
On Friday, I wrote about the buddy comedy that is Gov. Eric Holcomb’s and Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett’s working relationship, and how that makes things somewhat complicated for Holcomb’s fellow Republican, State Sen. Jim Merritt, who is challenging Hogsett.
Here’s the photo Merritt tweeted Saturday at the 500 Festival Breakfast at the Brickyard:
WHAT’S NEXT: The mayor and governor are hanging out with Tom Hanks this week. On Wednesday, at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, the “TODAY” show (Al Roker and Savannah Guthrie) will be in town, as will actor Tom Hanks. It’s all part of an initiative called Hidden Heroes, “a campaign designed to raise awareness and resources to improve the lives of the 5.5 million loved ones caring for the ill and wounded veterans across the United States,” per Fox 59. “On May 23 at 7 a.m., a special one-hour edition of NBC News’ TODAY will be co-anchored by Hanks and Savannah Guthrie live from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and will celebrate military caregivers nationwide.”
An insider tidbit? Visit Indy asked the mayor to provide a note to Savannah, Al, and Tom (because we’re on a first name basis with them, apparently). Hogsett’s note was composed on a typewriter—a tribute to Hanks, who is fascinated with the old technology.
IMPORTANTVILLE READS
Anita Kumar and Daniel Lippman, Politico: “Immigration activists stew over Pence’s role on immigration plan”
As a member of Congress more than a decade ago, Mike Pence unveiled an immigration proposal offering a chance for legal status to people who had come to the country illegally.
Hardline conservative activists were furious.
Tom Tancredo, then a firebrand Republican congressman from Colorado, called the vice president’s proposal both “amnesty” and “an atrocity”: A political action committee he co-founded set up a running “Pence Watch” online. The populist pundit Pat Buchanan likened Pence’s call for “a principled consensus on immigration reform” to a betrayal from “The Godfather” and said it could mean “the end of Mike Pence as a rising star of the GOP.”
Pence’s 2006 plan, which he insisted did not amount to amnesty for immigrants in the country illegally, died quietly and has been mostly forgotten in Washington.
But not by those hawkish advocates, who suspect that Pence is quietly seeking to have a moderating influence over President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, including what the president introduced as his new “pro-immigrant” plan on Thursday.
Although Pence largely echoes Trump’s talking points and has given few public hints that he sees things any differently, his critics have noticed with growing alarm that he is playing a greater behind-the-scenes role in Trump’s immigration policy than has been previously understood, a fact confirmed by people close to Pence.
Rachana Pradhan and Alice Miranda Ollstein, Politico: How Mike Pence took over HHS
Sweeping new protections for religious health care workers and an overhaul of family planning programs to effectively cut out Planned Parenthood represent something unusual in the Trump administration: a clear spotting of the fingerprints of Vice President Mike Pence.
From topics ranging from trade to the president’s scorched-earth attacks against the Mueller investigation, Pence has been the loyal foot soldier while often appearing uncomfortable amid the administration’s biggest fights.
Liz Goodwin, Boston Globe: “Mayor Pete and the Order of the Kong: How Buttigieg’s Harvard pals helped spur his rise in politics”
A tired-looking Senator Ted Kennedy was nearing the end of a question-and-answer session with students at Harvard’s Institute of Politics when a young man in a white button-down shirt approached the microphone. It was January 2003, President George W. Bush was enjoying high approval ratings, and an ambitious college junior with his own political aspirations wanted to know whether Democrats would ever find their way out of the wilderness.
“Thank you, sir. My name’s Peter. I’m a student at the college,” said a 21-year-old Pete Buttigieg in a surprising baritone. “It feels like a lot of your colleagues have adopted a posture of being for whatever the Republicans are for, only less: The tax cuts just a smaller one, and the war, just maybe not quite as quick as the Republican war.”
As the Lion of the Senate appeared to snap to attention, Buttigieg asked whether the rest of the Democratic Party would ever “sort out what it thinks the meaning of opposition is.”
More than 15 years later, that skinny college junior with a bone to pick with the Democratic Party is putting forward his own vision for a liberal opposition as a presidential candidate — one that is deeply informed by his time in Cambridge. When Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., first broke through as a candidate during a CNN town hall in March, he pondered the future of American democracy and questioned the merits of the fixation among religious conservatives with sexuality in paragraph-length answers that his friends from his Harvard years recognized immediately as quintessential, undergraduate Pete.
That’s all for today. Thanks for reading.
